You think I'm just some guy in Fresno who tinkered with crackpot ideas in his attic? Well, let me tell you something. This whole country is built on the shoulders of people who tinkered with crackpot ideas in attics, basements and backyards.
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~ -Wayne to Charles Hendrickson
Professor Wayne Szalinski is the main protagonist of the entire Honey, I Shrunk the Kids franchise: the three films and the TV series. He is a struggling inventor, known for his shrinking machine (which at first just explodes things), and he always intends to get it to work. He is married to a woman named Diane Szalinski and has three children (two in the first film): Amy Szalinski, Nick Szalinski, and (since the second) Adam Szalinski, and a dog named Quark.
He was portrayed by Rick Moranis and by the late Peter Scolari in the TV series.
Ever since his first appearances; he's a passionate mad scientist by heart, but a truely nerdy person by nature. Wayne is very dedicated with getting his inventions to work, even if they backfire or blow up on his face, and gets so obsessed with finishing said work that he isolates himself from anyone to get his work done, even his own son Nick (with the exception of Quark, his loyal pet Jack Russell Terrier). Wayne tends to come across as incredibly geeky and eccentric towards most people because of this personal routine of his becoming a gimmick for a hobby, especially when he is seen wearing ridiculous-looking metallic gear on him, enforcing his devotion to mad science.
He also tends to have extremely subpar social skills as a person. When Wayne was a businessman and a teacher, he comes across as awkward and silly in response to his shortcomings and misguided tactics that either work to his according or just don't. He also showed a wrathful and dramatic side as a teacher, where he acts really goofy, over-the-top and hams it up with telling his students to behave (which makes him taken less seriously than he intended).
Regardless of his antics and single-minded obsession with inventing, he's a resourceful and strategic person when he needs to be. Where in the first film, he did his best to help the kids gain their normal size again after using a magnifying glass to see the his kids got shrunk and remained standing on a spoon, Wayne then saw the kids giving him a clue about a baseball; Wayne analyzes their metaphor and pieces out the idea that the laser of his machine to try it out on a friend of his, to program a way to giantize people. He even thanks his son Nick, and calling him brilliant for reminding Wayne of the baseball earlier.
He even uses his machines to giantize a turkey and a biscuit for his family to munch on during Thanksgiving.
Bio[]
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids[]
Wayne is an inventor who is struggling to get his shrinking machine to work. He tests it out on an apple, but rather than shrinking it, the machine blows it up instead. While it's an interesting way of making applesauce, it causes Wayne great frustration, as he has a conference at the lab later that afternoon and must be able to demonstrate that the machine actually works.
At the conference, Wayne is laughed at by the audience when he can't prove that the machine works. When he gets home, he finds his two children, Amy Szalinski and Nick Szalinski, missing. When he goes up into the attic, he finds some of the furniture (including his beloved "thinking couch") missing as well. He also notices that the window is broken. He takes his frustration out on the machine, destroying it, and sweeping up the debris into the trash.
Unbeknownst to Wayne, however, the machine actually works. It had shrunk Amy and Nick, as well as Russ Jr. and Ron Thompson, the two boys next door, and he had accidentally swept them up and thrown them out with the trash. He spends the rest of the day desperately looking for them.
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid[]
Wayne and his family, after the incident involving his kids, move to Nevada. Amy heads off to college and Wayne is raising his third child, Adam Szalinski. Being the only one to constantly improve Adam's playpen so he doesn't get out, Wayne is also responsible for a project to duplicate his shrinking machine and enlarging matter. After constant failure, he continues working on the project alongside Dr. Charles Hendrickson. Afterwards, Wayne, Nick, and Adam go to the lab to run some tests and Wayne decides to use Adam's favorite toy, Big Bunny, as a test subject.
During testing, Adam ends up in the line of fire and like Big Bunny, he is hit with the same electrical energy. Upon returning home, Wayne decides to fix him some lunch and while he leaves to talk with Nick, Adam is exposed to the microwave's energy and grows. When shocked to see his unnatural size, Wayne decides to return to the lab and reverse the process. Before doing so, they discover Dr. Hendrickson is there and he relieves Wayne off the project. Eventually returning home, Wayne finds that Diane is home, who has discovered overgrown Big Bunny, and so he decides to tell her the truth.
When confronting Diane Szalinski, Adam comes into the house and causes her to faint at the sight of his unnatural size. She almost kills Wayne because of what happened and after trying to get Adam to stop his playful rampage around the house, he manages to fix a huge playpen for him. Wayne continues to seek a solution for Adam's condition and realizes the only solution is his prototype shrinking machine. Leaving Nick to watch over Adam, he and Diane head to the Sterling Labs Warehouse to find it. Succeeding in doing so, he assembles it while on the way and successfully tests it on a couple of police officers.
Upon confronting Dr. Hendrickson and Clifford Sterling, the CEO of Sterling Labs, who fires the former and assists Wayne in helping to getting Adam back to normal size. While going after him, Wayne, Diane, Sterling, and Marshall Brooks all get ahead of him before he heads to Las Vegas. Wayne's first plan consists of Big Bunny which ends in failure after he says the word "nap", which is a word Adam hates the most. Adam then heads for the city with Nick and Mandy in his overalls' pocket and grows at an alarming rate. After crossing an ice cream truck, Wayne realizes that Adam loves ice cream and so Marshal Brooks drives it in order to get Adam away from the city.
Wayne's plan seemed to have worked, however Adam grabs the ice cream bar right off the top of the truck and takes a bite right out off it. Diane then brings up an idea that she should make herself larger and despite his protest, she insists on it. Reluctantly, he makes her big in order for her to get Adam to stay still and succeeds in returning them back to normal size. The next problem is to find where Nick and Mandy are due to the fact that when Adam and Diane were returned to their normal sizes, they were still in his pocket and therefore were shrunk. After finding them, Wayne decides to leave them alone for a bit before growing them back to normal size offscreen, while consulting with Diane about shrinking Big Bunny.
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves[]
Eight years later, his 10 year old son Adam wants to go to baseball camp, despite initially disagreeing, while Diane was more understanding. Wayne and his brother, Gordon Szalinski receive tickets to watch a shuttle landing. However, Diane calls him that he needs to watch Adam and his cousins, Jenny and Mitch in addition to getting rid of a Tiki Man statue that they keep in their household, while she and Patti go on a vacation. After their wives leave and their kids leave, Wayne and Gordon are working on shrinking the Tiki Man without Diane's knowledge, in addition to preventing any accidents involving the kids by sending them out for an errand. They use the shrinking machine to shrink a Tiki Man statue, but as it recharges, it accidentally forces a red pool ball to press the button and shrink them too. Their wives return after Patti forgot to leave her son's medication for his potassium deficiency. They return to the attic to searching for their husbands until their wives got shrunk as well. Shortly, their kids return home from the grocery store, assuming their parents went to the shuttle launch. Jenny takes advantage of the situation by throwing a party. Wayne then notices the sports magazine in Adam's room, thus confirming that Adam's interest lies with sports and not science.
The parents have major difficulties of navigating through the house, overcoming obstacles and completing tasks such as reaching the counter, getting their kids attention, and ensuring Mitch takes his medication, otherwise, he'll faint. Jenny's crush along with a group of boys crash the party. Ricky King, tries to kiss her in the kitchen, only for Jenny to reject him after not giving her consent, much to Patti's delight. As a result, Ricky causes lots of mischief in the living room. Mitch arrives into the kitchen noticing his tiny mother and aunt and then he faints. Fortunately, Jenny and Adam find him passed out and gives him a banana with potassium, healing him. Adam stands up to Ricky whilst, Wayne and Gordon rewire the stereo so he can talk and amplify his voice. He pretends to be the voice of God ordering Ricky and his friends to leave, so that Adam, Mitch and Jenny find out what really happened to their parents.
After transporting their parents into the attic, the kids contemplate on keeping their parents shrunk at least for a week, before deciding that they grow them back out of love and giving them a second chance at changing their parenting styles. Patti is proud of Jenny for how she rejected Ricky and for taking care of Mitch. Wayne finally apologizes for not listening to him when he said he did not want to go to Camp Isosceles and accepts that Adam's hobby is baseball, and he proves it by signing him up for baseball camp for the summer. Diane tells Wayne to keep Tiki Man, while he gives the presidency position of Szalinski Labs to Gordon, resulting in him returning to inventing. In the end, Adam returns home from baseball camp, Wayne has a profound respect for baseball, while Tiki Man was moved into their backyard and is double the size of their house.
Trivia[]
Chevy Chase, Martin Short, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, the late Rodney Dangerfield, the late Robin Williams, Dan Aykroyd, and the late John Candy were all considered for the role of "Wayne Szalinski" before Rick Moranis and the late Peter Scolari were both casted.
